


Replacement

by sasha_b



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 07:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shane's game is thrown back in his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Replacement

**Author's Note:**

> for a prompt on TWD Kinkmeme on Live Journal: _Shane is known for using girls for sex and breaking their hearts. One day, he gets a taste of his own medicine. He meets a girl he really cares for, and surprise! she's just like him. She uses him for sex and breaks his heart. Cue Rick comforting Shane. I would love if they kissed, with their foreheads pressed together and hands on the back of each other's heads like when Shane was comforting Rick during bloodletting, but didn't go any further than that._

He wipes his eyes, dragging the back of his hand over them, rough skin biting at the tender pockets of bruised flesh. The wind whips at his longish hair; his uniform is crinkled and dirty and he sucks in a bucket full of snot, face wet, fingers shaking, the moon bright and Shane pulls out his gun, pointing it at the sky, face twisted in a perfect example of _fuck you, you fucking bitch, why won’t you love me?_

He cocks his head, the pressed trousers he wears hot and wrinkled and damp with sweat and spilled beer and he pulls back the hammer, the size of the Colt he’s currently carrying ridiculous. He aims at the large white moon, imaging Bethany’s face imprinted on it, tears running thickly down the sides of his large nose, anger and hurt roaring through his blood, too much emotion for him to deal with and he laughs and pulls the trigger and the gun thunders, righteous retribution as he lowers it to his lap.

No one says anything, because he’s alone, out at the edge of the Jenkins’ property, apple trees shielding him from view. 

The snot under his nose is drying to a crisp and he raises the gun again, eyes narrowing, watching the sky, heart full of some shit he doesn’t want to deal with, arms empty, Bethany gone and out of his life like _snap_ and he shakes his head, pain in it throbbing, aching, that fucking cu-

“What in the shit are you doing?”

He jerks – fuck’s sake, but he’s not paying attention, and that is not good, man – and lowers the Colt as Rick is staring at him, hat perfect, uniform perfect, badge shiny and Shane makes a _pfffft_ sound, holstering his gun and crossing his arms over his chest, right hand rubbing at his cried out eyes before doing so. Rick sets his hand on the truck bed and cocks his eyebrows.

Shane doesn’t say anything, merely watching the trees bend in the hot summer wind. It smells like rotten apples out here.

“What are you doing, friend?”

“Fuck off, Rick,” Shane finally spits; he twists his mouth and tightens his arms around himself. “I’m sitting here, and not hurtin’ no one ‘cept myself, so you just get yourself gone, okay, partner?”

He cants his eyes downward and bites on his lip, chewing at it, breath still hitching. Rick crosses to where he’s sitting on the truck and leaps nimbly to sit next him. Shane curses and snorts a sigh.

“What did I just say.”

“I don’t care what you just said. You’re out here, discharging your weapon without cause,” Rick points at the Colt shoved in Shane’s holster, “on someone’s property that’s not your own. And you’re crying, man.”

He reaches a hand up and touches the drying tears on Shane’s cheek; Shane jerks again and pulls away from the comforting touch. He doesn’t need Rick’s stupid fingers on his skin and he doesn’t need sympathy and that fucking bitch! How could she do that? How could she get into his damn heart, fuck him, love him – supposedly – and then slip on out and not give a damn how he felt? He’s been trying, he’d _been_ trying, so hard to find something that would twist his mind from where it shouldn’t go, and this, this girl that he’d found as a perfect replacement had gone and made him care.

That was _his_ game, god damn it.

“Why are you crying, Shane?”

The retort on his tongue dies as he looks at Rick out of the corner of his eye. His friend isn’t making fun, isn’t teasing. He’s looking at Shane with a well of compassion that has Shane swallowing over a very large lump in his throat, making his eyes burn, lips turn inward, hands clutch at themselves. Not him. Not Rick. He doesn’t know if he can say anything, can answer what Rick’s asking.

Wind almost rips the words from him, but Rick slips over and sits closer to him, the long line of the other man’s body a welcome heat even in the warmth of the Georgia summer night.

“Fuck. Bethany,” Shane sighs quietly. That’s all he’ll say about that.

“…oh.”

Both men, dressed in their deputies’ uniforms, sit identically straight and stare at the moon, the moon that Shane had shot at, anger still welling through him, blood thrumming and thundering and heating him with the pain of a loss he’d not expected nor wanted, truth be told.

Rick has Lori. Shane has his conquests. And now he has nothing.

“Fuck,” he whispers again and slumps, hands scrubbing at his crazy curls, tugging, pulling, the pain from the jerking making his eyes water and his face turn red. Rick reaches out, gently forcing Shane to lower his fingers and he slides his hand up Shane’s arm, letting it rest at the back of Shane’s neck, a gesture so familiar and long denied Shane lets out a gasp – fucking tears, fucking comfort, it was _his_ game, damn it – and he pulls his legs up, knees folding, arms going ‘round them, protecting, anguish flooding and he hates it.

“I’m sorry, partner.”

“Yeah, well,” Shane laughs shakily. “Guess I got a taste of my own medicine, huh.” He drops his head to lay on his knobby knees, bad one throbbing, that thing that had ruined his football chances fuck’s sake, and tries to pull away from Rick’s warm touch. He’s not like this. He’s strong, he’s a cop, he’s an athlete, he’s a ladies’ man and he’s fucking crying. Jesus. For more than one thing, apparently.

“Come on,” Rick murmurs. “Come on, man.”

Shane raises his head, stars white and twinkling, tiny jewels dotting the black empty sky, empty and stupid and a cry jerks out of him, and he leans forward and his forehead is touching Rick’s, the other man’s hand still resting, large and _Rick_ on the back of his neck.

Shane closes his eyes, shame and annoyance and Bethany all wrapped up in a tumbling whirl of _feeling_ that he can’t stand and hates and he spits out a curse and grips at Rick’s biceps as Rick murmurs a _shhhh_ and their heads are together and here’s the one thing that won’t go away from him, no matter Lori or Rick’s impending baby, or aging or responsibility or anything that might try and come between them. Shane has Rick and he has this touch and this partnership, work and life, and he barks out a sob, just one, and they finally separate, Rick shaking his head and smiling slowly, gently.

“You’re not dead yet, Shane.”

“Feels about like it,” he answers, having to force his hands to unwrap from Rick’s arms. The warmth still hangs around; he can feel the other man’s flesh, hot skin, the familiar smell, love that won’t do him wrong, ever. He can only pray.

“You’ll find another one.”

“Don’t want another one,” he mumbles into his hands, rubbing at his burning eyes for the hundredth time, embarrassed, unmanned, torn between wanting to hold Rick to him, forever, and going out and hunting down Bethany for taking his cock in her hands and destroying him. Not just his cock, but also his heart – that was way worse.

Rick knocks his shoulder into Shane’s, and Shane reaches behind him to the cooler of Lone Star and hands one to Rick before opening another for himself.

He’d found girls, time and again, and did what he’d wanted and now he’d had the same done to him – was it inevitable, the game, forever alone, forever finding a replacement for something he was scared to admit to wanting?

Fuck that, he wasn’t going down that fucking road right now. He was way too sober for those thoughts, and if he were to voice them – he chances a look at Rick, and smiles woodenly when Rick meets his eyes.

So many girls, all in his bed, one right after another, never enough, never what he really wanted. Even the one that has him bawling like a damn baby, shooting his gun at the night sky, acting a fool in front of –

Rick takes a pull of his beer and reaches over and clinks his bottle to Shane’s. “Things’ll be okay, Shane. You have me and you have Lori and we’ll do whatever you need to make it right. Okay?”

He swallows, thick and broken and nods.

After a few blank minutes, the wind rises and blows wet heat into their faces as they drink and Shane lets his left hand drift to the back of Rick’s neck and it stays there, even as he lets a few tears fall again for the fucking girl that played him like he’d played so many others.

There’ll be another one. Maybe she’ll have long dark hair, and be skinny, and maybe she’ll have big blue eyes and a laughing mouth and be a friend for life, succoring and comforting and being what he needs even though that bill could be filled by the person sitting next to him.

Yeah. Another one.

They drink and when Rick finally suggests they leave, he agrees quietly, and follows the other man in his truck, gun riding silently at his hip, tears dried, face aching and blood slowed to a minute slush, storm passed, leaving behind it trees and streets stripped bare, empty, nothing.

Bethany’s kiss imprints itself on his lips, and Rick’s hand throbs at his neck, a ghost of a memory that tangles itself with his heart and he slams his hand on the steering wheel once, twice as they turn onto Main, the streetlights blowing in the summer wind.


End file.
